


Losing Power

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 23:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15568494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: You think mulder ever freaked out when the power cut out after Samantha was abducted?





	Losing Power

The first time it happened was during a late winter storm. Snow brought down power lines and the house plunged into darkness. It wasn’t the blackout that bothered him, it was the flickering beforehand, the uncertainty, the way it held him in a suspense that was neither light nor dark. His mind screamed back to that night, just a few months earlier and he sat in the closet hugging his knees until his mother wandered in with a flashlight in one hand and a brandy in the other.

“Fox? You can’t spend your time sitting in the dark.”

The second time it happened was at the school dance when some jock overloaded the amps and boom! the music died along with the lights. Mulder’s dance partner, Shelly, giggled into his neck when he started shaking and couldn’t talk. He fled the hall, tumbling into tables and knocking over the drinks fountain. Outside, he slumped against the sports block hall under a full sky of stars, suit soaked with sticky soda. Shelly found him and sat next to him.

“Talk to me, Fox.”

He couldn’t. How could he explain the images of Samantha floating out the window? How could he tell her it was all his fault.

“Fox? You’re spooking me.”

Phoebe laughed in his face when she found him sitting in the corner of her room, flicking her Zippo frantically. “It needs a refill, Fox. But no matter,” she said, sliding a hand under his shirt. “It’s always better in the dark.”

He struck her hand away.

“Fuck you,” she said. “Sit in the dark. It suits your personality.”

With Patterson it became a game. He got off on Mulder’s reaction.

“You see her, don’t you, Mulder? You see her slipping away from you, unable to reach her, you’re paralysed, your fear feeding on itself so that all you can do is stay in the prison of your body and do nothing.” His breath was as bitter as his words. “You’re a useless piece of shit, boy. Your father probably told you that already. He wasn’t wrong. You have nothing if you don’t have power over yourself.”

When the lights went out in Bellefleur, his first reaction was to slip under the covers and shiver it out. He sucked in air and held his shaking hands out in front of him. Samantha called out to him, begging for his help. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to regulate his breathing, tried to block out her voice as she screamed and drifted away.

A car drove into the parking lot and he focused on the hum of the engine. He opened his eyes, watching the headlights. There was a candle under the sink. The flickering flame soothed him somewhat and he sat watching it dance, repeating Patterson’s mantra ‘you have nothing if you don’t have power over yourself’ until the knock on his door.


End file.
